https://phys.org/space-news/planetary-sciences/ en-us Planetary science and exoplanets exploration news stories and features from Phys.org Our planet rests inside a magnetic cocoon filled with plasma—but it's not always peaceful and quiet. Activity from the sun can send waves through this space, and some of those disturbances can even reach Earth, affecting our power grid. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-volunteers-rare-space-weather-events.html Planetary Sciences Fri, 17 Apr 2026 13:20:01 EDT news695645895 Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is now on its way out of our solar system, never to return. The comet was only the third-ever detected object to originate from outside our solar system. Traveling at high speeds, it looped around the sun within 1.5 AU (one AU, or astronomical unit, is the distance between Earth and the sun) in October 2025; as of April, it is now past the orbit of Jupiter on its way out of the solar system. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-methane-emerges-interstellar-comet-3iatlas.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 16 Apr 2026 19:40:01 EDT news695572435 Do aliens exist? Could Earth really be the only planet hosting intelligent life? https://phys.org/news/2026-04-aliens-real-scientists-extraterrestrial-life.html Astrobiology Thu, 16 Apr 2026 17:40:03 EDT news695561461 Astronomers using the W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaiʻi Island are revealing new insight into the composition and origins of Uranus's two outer rings. Using data from the Keck Observatory Archive (KOA), combined with observations taken by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), researchers constructed the first complete reflectance spectrum (sunlight reflected off the rings) of the μ and ν rings, confirming their colors and uncovering their detailed composition. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-uranus-outer-starkly.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 16 Apr 2026 15:37:42 EDT news695572582 On a calm day, a light breeze might barely ripple the surface of a lake on Earth. But on Saturn's largest moon, Titan, a similar mild wind would kick up 10-foot-tall waves. This otherworldly behavior is one prediction from a new wave model developed by scientists at MIT. The model is the first to capture the full dynamics of waves and what it takes to whip them up under different planetary conditions. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-titan-lakes-spawn-foot-gentle.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 16 Apr 2026 10:00:06 EDT news695550271 NASA's SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer) mission has mapped interstellar ice at an unprecedented scale. Covering regions in our Milky Way galaxy more than 600 light-years across, the ice was found inside giant molecular clouds—vast regions of gas and dust where dense clumps of matter collapse under gravity, giving birth to stars. A study describing these findings was published Wednesday in The Astrophysical Journal. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-interstellar-glaciers-nasa-spherex-vast.html Astronomy Wed, 15 Apr 2026 19:20:04 EDT news695485741 Unfortunately for science fiction fans, desert worlds outside our solar system are unlikely to host life, according to new research from the University of Washington. Scientists show that an Earth-sized planet needs at least 20 to 50% of the water in Earth's oceans to maintain a critical natural cycle that keeps water on the surface. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-planets-life-scientists-previously-thought.html Astrobiology Wed, 15 Apr 2026 18:40:03 EDT news695485502 An international team led by Dr. Indrani Das of Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA) has shown, for the first time, how infalling gas from star-forming cores gradually transitions into planet-forming disks. Their findings, combining numerical simulations with Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations, are published today in The Astrophysical Journal. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-astronomers-decades-mystery-gas-morphing.html Astronomy Wed, 15 Apr 2026 18:20:01 EDT news695483821 NASA and other space agencies are intent on sending astronauts back to the moon, and this time, to stay! A vital part of these plans for reducing costs and dependency on Earth is the process of In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), using local resources for construction materials and meeting astronauts' basic needs. This is why the South Pole-Aitken Basin, with its many permanently shadowed regions (PSRs), is considered a promising region for building habitats that will enable long-term exploration and development. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-exploring-moon-shadowy-craters-nuclear.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 15 Apr 2026 16:20:08 EDT news695475661 A research team has developed a new approach to detecting life beyond Earth that does not rely on identifying specific biological markers. Instead, the study suggests that life may be detectable through patterns emerging across groups of planets, offering a new framework for astrobiology in situations where traditional biosignatures are ambiguous or unreliable. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-alien-life-plain-sight-statistical.html Astrobiology Wed, 15 Apr 2026 16:20:04 EDT news695476405 Earth and the course of life on Earth have been shaped by impacts. Scientists have uncovered links between massive impacts and changes in climate that altered the planet forever. But the further scientists look into the past to try to understand these changes, the more difficult it is to link them together. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-zhamanshin-impact-event-destructive-thought.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 15 Apr 2026 16:00:02 EDT news695475301 Caltech researchers have identified geological features on Mars that could point to the existence of a long-dried ocean that once covered a third of the Red Planet's surface. The research was conducted by former Caltech postdoctoral scholar Abdallah Zaki and Caltech professor of geology Michael Lamb. The study is described in a paper appearing in the journal Nature. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-bathtub-hints-ancient-martian-ocean.html Astrobiology Wed, 15 Apr 2026 15:20:09 EDT news695475961 Noticeable change on Mars often takes millions of years—but the European Space Agency's Mars Express has captured a blanket of dark ash creeping across the planet in just decades. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-dark-volcanic-ash-visibly-reshaped.html Astronomy Wed, 15 Apr 2026 15:00:05 EDT news695475062 Astronomers at The University of New Mexico have published new research confirming three bodies orbiting the dynamic exoplanet system TOI-201. They include a super-Earth (TOI-201 d), a warm Jupiter (TOI-201 b), and a brown dwarf (TOI-201 c). https://phys.org/news/2026-04-astronomers-reveal-multi-planet.html Astronomy Wed, 15 Apr 2026 14:00:05 EDT news695463481 The lunar south pole looks chaotic from orbit. Craters heaped upon craters, ancient basins, scarps and slopes tumbling in every direction, it is without doubt, one of the most geologically complicated terrains in the inner solar system. That aside, it's exactly where we intend to send people, since understanding what lies beneath that battered surface isn't just scientific curiosity. It's the essential groundwork for everything that follows. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-moon-1.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 15 Apr 2026 13:20:07 EDT news695472001 Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers from Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and elsewhere have observed a giant exoplanet known as HATS-75 b. Results of the new observations, published April 8 on the arXiv pre-print server, yield important information on the atmosphere of this planet. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-jwst-methane-giant-exoplanet-star.html Astronomy Wed, 15 Apr 2026 08:00:03 EDT news695375088 The Subaru Telescope observed the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS on January 7, 2026, after it made its closest approach to the sun. By observing colors in the coma around the comet, astronomers could estimate the ratio of carbon dioxide to water. This ratio is much lower than that inferred from earlier observations by space telescopes. These findings suggest that the chemistry of the coma is evolving over time and offers clues to the structure of comet 3I/ATLAS. The work appears in The Astronomical Journal. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-subaru-telescope-captures-comet-3iatlas.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 15 Apr 2026 03:58:42 EDT news695444252 Scientists have found that young stellar cousins of our sun are calming down and dimming more quickly in their X-ray output than previously thought, according to a new study using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. A paper describing the results is published in The Astrophysical Journal. Unlike in the new movie "Project Hail Mary," this quieting of young stars is a benefit for the prospects for life on orbiting planets around these stars, not a threat. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-young-stars-dim-quickly-ray.html Astrobiology Tue, 14 Apr 2026 19:20:01 EDT news695398382 Research led by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has integrated three types of machine learning models to generate solar magnetic patches with physical properties and used those as a query to find matching patches in real observations. This elevates generative artificial intelligence (AI) from a means to produce artificial data to a novel tool for scientific data interrogation, supporting applicability beyond the heliophysics domain. The paper is published in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-virtual-sunspots-ai-rare-magnetic.html Astronomy Tue, 14 Apr 2026 18:10:01 EDT news695404022 Planets, like those in our solar system, form in a bottom-up process where small bits of rock and ice clump together and grow larger over time. But the heftier the planet, the harder it is to explain its formation that way. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-webb-redefines-line-planets-stars.html Astronomy Tue, 14 Apr 2026 16:40:06 EDT news695390761 Venus, often called Earth's twin, is in fact a planet of extremes. Beneath its thick carbon dioxide atmosphere are crushing surface temperatures and dense clouds of sulfuric acid. While the planet's main cloud layer sits between 47 and 70 kilometers above the surface, scientists have long been puzzled by a mysterious layer of particles below 47 kilometers, known as the "lower haze." First detected by spacecraft in the 1970s, the origin of this haze remained unexplained for more than half a century. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-cosmic-source-venus-enigmatic-haze.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 14 Apr 2026 09:40:02 EDT news695374801 The IBeA group of the EHU-University of the Basque Country is proposing new measures to safeguard the purity of extraterrestrial samples. Several contaminants, including traces of ink, originating in the preparation of subsamples, have been identified in Martian meteorites by the EHU's research group. The finding highlights the importance of stricter protocols to prevent misinterpretations of the composition of these rocks and to ensure the reliability of future studies and Mars sample-return missions. The research is published in the journal Applied Geochemistry. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-contaminants-ink-meteorites-sample.html Astrobiology Tue, 14 Apr 2026 04:13:21 EDT news695358737 At this point in NASA's human spaceflight story, researchers have a substantial amount of material—documents, artifacts and images—with which to tell the stories of past flights to space. But with NASA's Artemis II mission around the moon now in the books, we're getting a refreshed look at space. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-artemis-ii-crew-modern-photography.html Space Exploration Mon, 13 Apr 2026 18:00:03 EDT news695294897 The moon is Earth's only natural satellite, a rocky celestial body that orbits our planet at an average distance of about 384,000 kilometers. The most widely accepted scientific explanation for the moon's origin is the "giant impact," a high-energy collision between a Mars-sized proto-planet named Theia with the young "proto-Earth" about 4.5 billion years ago. As the newly formed moon cooled down from a hot magma ocean, layers with varying iron-content and mineral compositions crystallized to form the moon's structure that we know today. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-moon-iron-rich-thought.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 13 Apr 2026 15:40:07 EDT news695304925 Since July 2025, the European Space Agency's pair of Proba-3 satellites has already created 57 artificial solar eclipses. So far, the mission has collected more than 250 hours of high-resolution videos of the sun's atmosphere, called the corona. That's the same amount of observing time as about 5,000 total solar eclipse campaigns carried out on Earth. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-proba-science-speedy-solar-corona.html Astronomy Mon, 13 Apr 2026 14:00:11 EDT news695301302 Across Earth, every night, thousands of automated stargazers are waiting to take pictures of shooting stars. I am one of the scientists who study these meteors. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-sun-asteroid-pieces-earth-flying.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 13 Apr 2026 12:40:04 EDT news695298482 Look up at a full moon on a clear night and you are staring at a face that has been punched, gouged, and battered for 4 billion years. Those dark patches are vast basins blasted open by impacts so colossal they reshaped a world. The lighter highlands are pocked and pitted, crater upon crater, each one a frozen record of a collision that happened long before humans walked Earth. Unlike our own planet, the moon has no weather to smooth things over, no rivers to fill the hollows, and no wind to soften the edges. What hits it stays. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-moon-scar.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 13 Apr 2026 11:40:01 EDT news695295632 An international team including the University of Bern (UNIBE) and the University of Geneva (UNIGE), members of the National Center of Competence in Research PlanetS, has succeeded in mapping the climate of rocky exoplanets with masses similar to Earth for the first time. This breakthrough is based on continuous observations using the James Webb Space Telescope. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-eternal-night-day-cousins-earth.html Astrobiology Mon, 13 Apr 2026 11:00:13 EDT news695294959 Japan's space agency, JAXA, has been knocking it out of the park with small-body exploration missions for decades. They had historic successes with both Hayabusa and Hayabusa2, and they are going to visit the Martian moons soon with the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission. But after that, they are aiming for something much more pristine and arguably more difficult—a comet. The Next Generation Small-Body Return (NGSR) was recently described in a paper presented at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC), and is under assessment as a large-class mission for the 2030s. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-jaxa-pristine-early-solar-samples.html Space Exploration Sun, 12 Apr 2026 14:30:01 EDT news694785617 On August 19, 2022, solar astronomers using the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) on the Hawaiian island of Maui caught the fading remnants of a C-class solar flare. Their observations showed something unusual: very strong spectral fingerprints of calcium II H and hydrogen-epsilon lines. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-scientists-solar-flare-spectral-behavior.html Astronomy Sun, 12 Apr 2026 13:30:01 EDT news695029416